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(Jehovah’s Valley, Oregon, Wednesday, October 1, 2013)
Janet sat on the floor, her back against the wall, her arms wrapped around her knees for warmth. She was cold. In mild shock probably, she thought. She’d been firebombed, drugged, kidnapped and dragged 300 miles from home, beaten, and tossed in here. Yup, those were grounds to be in a bit of shock. It had to be getting close to midnight, which might account for the chill as well.
She thought of another song to sing when she realized she could hear women’s voices already singing it: The Old Rugged Cross Made the Difference for Me, an old Bill Gaither song. She listened to them for a minute, and then joined in, singing along. Singing it louder even.
She let them sing the second verse—her memory wasn’t that good:
Barren walls echoed harshness and anger Little feet run in terror to hide; Now those walls ring with love, warmth and laughter, Since the giver of life moved inside.
And then rejoined them on the chorus:
And the old rugged cross made the difference, In a life bound for heartache and defeat, I will praise Him forever and ever, For the cross made the difference for me.
She thought about the lyrics of the second verse, while the women sang the third. She wondered if there was a specific message within it for her. And exactly what that message was. And then it was time for her to join the chorus again. She grinned. This was actually fun. It felt good to sit up here on the hillside and belt out old songs.
The women switched to another Gaither song: The King is Coming. One of her favorites, and she knew all the words, or could at least fake it.
The marketplace is empty, No more traffic in the streets, All the builders' tools are silent, No more time to harvest wheat, Busy housewives cease their labors, In the courtroom no debate, Work on earth is all suspended, As the King comes thro' the gate
Janet frowned. They were working through an old Gaither collection, but she got the impression that these women saw themselves as under siege, if not under attack. Why?
She picked the next song. It was in the same collection although not a Gaither song. Written by a woman, whose name she couldn’t remember.
I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses, And the voice I hear falling on my ear, The Son of God discloses
And He walks with me and He talks with me, And He tells me I am his own; And the joy we share as we tarry there, None other has ever known
The women—where were they? In the church, she guessed—let her sing solo on the first verse and chorus, and then they picked up the second verse, and she rejoined on the chorus. Dang they were doing good!
In the church below, the eight women grinned at each other. The music gave them courage. They’d prayed together. Then, one of them started singing the song Janet had been singing at the time. The rest followed. Now it was like a call and response songfest.
Paula looked around at the women she loved like sisters. She was scared. But it helped to be together, to know they would support each other no matter what. One woman had a small sleeping child bedded down on a pew. Naomi was helping care for two young children at a table in back. They were coloring. She was such a giving young woman, Paula thought tenderly. When this was over, she’s going to college. We could use her as a teacher here.
The back door of the church slammed open, startling all the women.
“What are you doing? I will not have this!” John Welch roared at them, standing in the doorway to the small sanctuary.
“Brother John?” Paula said. “We are having a prayer and Bible study. Do you want to join us?”
“I know what you are doing! You are aiding and comforting that jezebel of a woman,” he shouted angrily. “You will be silent. You will return to your homes. You will not defy me!”
Agnes, the oldest of the women present, stood up. She was getting frail now, one of the few left of the original elders. But her spine was straight, and she met John Welch’s eyes without flinching. Probably no other woman could have done it. Paula was amazed and humbled. I want to be like her when I’m her age, she thought. A still voice in her spirit said she would be.
“Brother John, you are beside yourself. You have interrupted the peace of the Lord that we have sought in this church as is our right. We choose to serve Him, not man, not you, nor any other. You might need to find a place to seek His will for you as we seek His will for us.”
And then she sat down, and with only a bit of aging vibrato, started the old hymn, Just As I Am. The rest of the women joined her, and soon they heard Janet join from the cabin.
John whirled around and slammed the door behind him.
“Paula, child, where is Stephen?” Agnes asked softly as the other women continued to sing.
“He’s with father, with Brother Brandt,” she replied, keeping her voice down.
“Good, that’s good,” Agnes said. “Brother Brandt shouldn’t be alone.” She closed her eyes for a moment, resting, as if her confrontation with Brother John had taken a lot from her.
Paula watched her, switching to nursing mode as she thought of it, and then relaxed. Agnes was emotionally drained, but physically fine. She worried after the elders; it was part of her job as nurse to the Valley. A big part of her job, really, because overall they were a healthy bunch. She fixed up injuries—the natural outcome of farm work—and monitored pregnancies. And, of course, her biggest challenge of the moment—keeping Preacher alive. Seeing the insanity on John Welch’s face just now, she realized just how important that task was.
Time for another round of the song she most associated with Janet:
This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine, let it shine.
Stephen sat quietly in the rocker across from his father, who sat it in his recliner. Growing up the rocker had been his mother’s. The recliner his father’s. And woe to any child who sat in either! He might have snuck in and tried out the rocker, but he didn’t think he ever sat in the recliner. Ever.
The room was a comfortable one. A big black potbellied stove in one corner put out enough heat for the entire house even during the coldest winters. He and Andrew cut wood for his father every year. Up until three years ago, his father had gone with them. Up until three years ago, his father could still hunt and pack out his own deer. Up until three years ago, a lot of things had been different.
He let his eyes roam over the rest of the room: a big couch, a coffee table that was practically indestructible—Andrew and he had put it to the test more than once—bookshelves full of his mother’s books and his father’s Bibles. And photographs on the walls. Of him, of Andrew, and of Timothy. A large one of his mother. Lord, he missed her.
There were no pictures of Janet.
“Did I hear someone singing up in the Penitent Cabin?” his father asked, his eyes closed as he rested, tipped back in the recliner.
Stephen hesitated.
His father opened his eyes, looked at him. “Stephen?”
Stephen had never been able to lie. Not well. Not at all really. Paula teased him about how that was why she’d married him. He’d never get away with even the slightest lie to her. Not that he had ever tried. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
He tried to smile. “It’s Janet.”
His father looked at him steadily.
“John...” Stephen started, stopped, tried again, “John had her kidnapped and brought here, this afternoon. When she defied him, he beat her, then locked her up in the Cabin.”
His father closed his eyes, reclined back in his chair.
“Dad?” Stephen said, his voice shaking a bit. “Why....”
“I’m not going to talk about it with you, Stephen,” his father said wearily. “Not now, not ever.”
“He raped her!”
“I said I’m not going to talk about it!”
“You know Timothy is her son, but you’ve raised him as if he’s unrelated to any of us. You didn’t even tell Janet about Mom being sick or that she was dead! Why????”
“Stop it!” his father shouted back. Then started coughing. He reached for some water, sipped it. He took several deep breaths.
“Mary and I decided not to tell Janet because she would have come back here, and John would never have let her leave. We decided not to tell Timothy because word would have gotten out that Janet had a son, and John would have used him to bring Janet back here.”
Stephen looked at him in horror. “You know what John Welch is, and this is the man you are entrusting the Valley to?”
“Who else is there? You? I’d give you my blessing in a heartbeat, but you don’t want it. Never have, and I won’t force you to it. Andrew? I have always thought that John had the good of the Valley at heart, even if he was... rough... with women.”
“Women.” Stephen repeated. “More than one? More than Janet. His first wife? What about Naomi? Dad? Has he abused Naomi?”
The Preacher was silent. “Mary thought so, but Naomi denied it, and of course John did too.”
Stephen sat back in the rocker. He felt gut-punched. How much else was hidden behind the closed doors of this community, he wondered. How many other things had his father swept under the rug? Well, maybe that was unfair. His father had counseled almost everyone in the Valley at one time or another. He had protected their confidences. So had his mother.
But abusing a child? Still, hadn’t he and Paula suspected as well? He didn’t know what to think.
“You need to do something for me,” his father said. His breathing was labored, and Stephen looked at him with concern. “I’m all right,” he said irritably. “Go into my bedroom, to your mother’s memory chest. There are two letters addressed to Janet, one from her mother, and one from me. You need to see to it that she gets them.”
Stephen got up and did his bidding. The letters were where he said they were, nestled among the mementos of a woman much beloved by generations of students as well as her own children. There was a scrapbook he didn’t recognize. He pulled it out. In it were clippings of Janet’s work, and letters from his mom’s sister talking about Janet. The scrapbook ended the month his mom had died. He blinked back tears and closed the chest. Holding the letters, he walked back into the living room.
“These?” he asked.
His father glanced his way, then nodded. “Put them away. Give them to her. It was a promise I made to Mary,” he said.
Stephen slipped them into the inside pocket of his vest where they couldn’t be seen. The vest had seemed to be just enough extra warmth as he’d left his own home to walk across the valley to his father’s house. Now, he wondered if he’d ever be warm again.
“I’ll try,” he said. “I’m not sure I can. John’s got the Cabin padlocked, and I don’t have anything that will cut the chain.”
His father nodded, tired. “You will. I have faith. If I have nothing else, I still have that.” He paused; his breathing harsh. “Open the door, will you boy? I’d like to hear her sing one last time.”
Stephen opened the door. He stood in the doorway, a moment.
“The women are meeting for prayer,” he said in wonder. “They’re singing with her.”
“Good,” the Preacher said. “Good.”
In the Penitent’s Cabin, Janet found that singing together with the women she’d grown up with was giving her peace. She wondered who was down there. Would she even recognize any of them? Possibly. She wondered how they knew—Stephen, she supposed. He was married to Paula now. She had become a nurse, Mac had said.
Janet rested, just listening to the women sing for a bit. Then she heard someone rattling at the lock.
“Naomi?” she said quietly. She backed toward the wall where she’d set the lid of the chemical commode. It had taken some work to pry it loose, but she’d persevered. She wasn’t going to be without some kind of weapon.
The door opened.
“No, not my daughter,” John Welch said.
Naomi Welch crept up the slope to the Cabin behind her father. She’d learned to move silently as a child to stay out of the way of her father and then later her brother. She often went days without speaking to either of them, tending to the house, fixing meals, doing the laundry and all the myriad other tasks involved in running a home when no modern conveniences were permitted. She knew from the girls at school that being able to milk a cow, churn butter, pluck a chicken, and plant a garden were no longer common skills even in a rural town like Union. But she liked working with animals. They didn’t get angry at her.
Her father was always angry about something. And as her brother grew up, he’d become more like him, and less like her little brother who had followed her everywhere after their mother died.
She wasn’t sure what had happened to her mother. She’d been too young to know what was going on, only that she was gone. Gone to a better place, the Preacher had explained to her very gently. But she couldn’t understand why her mother had gone to a better place and left her behind with her father. She wanted to go away too. But she couldn’t because she had to take care of her father and brother. Her father had told her that, and she believed him.
Now she saw him unlock the door to the Cabin, and she knew in the pit of her stomach this was not good. She couldn’t do anything, but she knew who might be able to. She silently went down the hill to Preacher’s house where she could find Brother Stephen. Because this was not good. Not good at all.
“Hello John,” Janet said, levelly. Her fingers tightened on the round metal lid she hid behind her. “Why have you done this? You must know I will not be your wife here.”
He came into the room, and she moved so that he wasn’t directly in front of the door. He was too crafty to allow her to circle him, but she didn’t need that. She just needed him to come close.
“It’s time for your father to turn the Valley leadership over to me,” he said calmly. He moved toward her. She danced back just a bit, leading him on. “He still insists that God has shown him that your husband is to be the leader of the Valley. He’s senile, I suppose. God doesn’t speak to us that way anymore. But the people listen to him.”
Janet recognized the sound of a man with a lot of grievances pent up inside. She considered him briefly, picturing John as an interview subject. “That does seem unreasonable of him,” she agreed. “But,” she hesitated, looking for the right words, “but I’m told he’s dying. Is that true?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Then why can’t you just wait? When he is gone, who else would the Valley turn to?”
He tensed up; his shoulders hunched as if she’d hit a nerve.
“John?” she asked, moving toward him now, as if she was sympathetic to the challenges he faced.
“Army of God. They say that if there isn’t a clear line of succession, they will provide a leader for the Valley, and it won’t be me!” he said angrily.
“Why does Army of God have any say in that?” This seemed to her to be the most perplexing question of all of them.
John sighed. “About 10 years ago, we were in trouble financially. Although our needs are small, and we are relatively self-sufficient, we’d grown too large for this place to sustain us. An Army of God representative approached us about being a waystation for them. A place for their people to stay when they were on the move, a place to store weapons and other goods. And they would pay us, even if they didn’t stay here at all.”
“Approached father?” Janet asked, amazed that her father would agree to that.
John shook his head. “No, they came to me. I was handling the finances, so they thought I would be the one who could make that decision.”
Janet looked at him in silence for a moment. “Did you tell Dad?”
He shook his head again. “Not until later. It was quite a fight. But it was a done deal. We’d already taken the money. The ease it bought us allowed families to send children to college. To supplement the clothing budget. Do you know how much it costs to keep over 200 people in shoes?”
Janet almost felt some sympathy for him. This had always been an unrealistic dream of the elders. Anyone could see a crisis coming. Anyone but those bullheaded elders who insisted God would provide.
Apparently, He had.
She bit her lip. “But people are working in town now. There should be enough money coming in.”
He shrugged, almost indifferently. “Oh, probably,” he agreed. “But we’ve done things for Army of Good that they could hold against us if we tried to sever our ties. And to be honest, a lot of the younger men like the opportunities Army of God provides them. I like the opportunities. Do you know how tiresome this Valley has become? With Army of God we have new people coming in. I leave to meet with the leaders. I’m a valuable part of Army of God, and respected.”
He looked surprised at how much he’d said. His eyes narrowed. “But now they’re demanding I take you as my wife and provide leadership. I’ve needed a wife for a long time now.”
He advanced toward her, and she braced herself. Just as he reached out to grab her, she brought the commode lid around and used it like a scythe to wallop him just below his ear. He bellowed and grabbed his head. She hit him again. And again.
He dropped to his knees. She brought the lid down on his head. Battering him with it, until he lay still at her feet.
She kicked him. And then when he didn’t move, she let out a deep breath. Well that had gone better than last time, she thought. She pulled out his belt, reluctant to touch him even that much, but she wanted to bind his hands. She pulled them behind his back, wrapped the belt around his arms from wrists up nearly to his elbows, and then buckled it to hold the belt in place. She studied it for a moment and then shrugged. She pulled off his cattlemen’s vest and used it to gag him. Wouldn’t last long, if he got his hands free. It would have to do.
Searching his pockets, another act that left her in revulsion, she found the key to the lock he had placed on the door. He didn’t move. Janet considered him, wondering if she’d killed him, then decided she really didn’t care.
She took the keys and left the Cabin, locking the heavy chain in place behind her.
The women were still singing the same song, so it hadn’t been as long a conversation as it had felt. She tucked the key into the pocket of her sweats—she’d do almost anything for a shower and clean clothes—then headed toward the church. Surely one of them would be sane enough to give her a ride into town. And then she stopped as a caravan of black pickups drove through the gate at the road, their headlights illuminating the Valley.
Army of God was here. She hesitated, and then fled into the dark shadows behind the barn.